[Illustration: "Scraggsy looked like a forlorn hope lost in a fog.">[
"Why can't people be honest?" said Mr. Scraggs—Silence!
"Charley!" cried Red, reproachfully, "why don't you tell the gentleman?"
"No, no, no!" replied Charley. "You be older'n me, Red—you explain."
"Well," said Red, "I suppose the loss of their hair kind of discourages 'em."
"I had rather," meditated Mr. Scraggs, "I had much rather wear the top of my head a smooth white record of a well-spent life than go amblin' around the country like the Chicago fire out for a walk, and I repeat: Why can't people be honest?"
"I begin to pity somebody an awful lot," said Red. "Did you send him home barefoot?"
"You go on!" retorted Mr. Scraggs. "I fell into the hands of the Filly-steins oncet, and they put the trail of the serpent all over me. I run into the temple of them twin false gods, Mammon and Gammon, and I stood to draw one suit of sack-cloth and a four-mule wagon-load of ashes."
"Is them the close you got on now?" said Charley. "And what did you get for the ashes?"
"The play come up like this," said Scraggs. "After my eighteenth bestowin' of the honored name of Scraggs upon a person that didn't appreciate it the Mormon Church see fit to assume a few duties on me. I was put in a position of importance in a placer minin' districk inhabited by jack-rabbits, coyotes, Chinamen, and Mrs. Scraggses. And still I wasn't happy. Them jack-rabbits et up my little garding patch; the coyotes gathered at nights and sung me selections from the ghost dance; the Chinamen sprung every con-cussed trick on me that a man who wears his whiskers down his back can think of; and day and night alike, Mrs. Scraggs, from one to eighteen, informed me what I'd ort to do.